Advocating for Reproducibility

As guest editors, we are excited to publish this special double issue ofIASSIST Quarterly. The topics of reproducibility, replicability, and transparency have been addressed in past issues of IASSIST Quarterly and at the IASSIST conference, but this double issue is entirely focused on these issues

The Impact of Transformative Agreements on Publication Patterns: An Analysis Based on Agreements from the ESAC Registry

"Transformative agreements" are agreements made between publishers and institutions that were intended to transform the traditional subscription-based scholarly publishing system to open access. Some publishers and institutions have argued that these are the best option, yet, they are increasingly being called into question. Not only does the transition remain incomplete, they create negative effects on researchers without access to an agreement or funding to pay an article processing charge. This research project sought to address the question of whether transformative agreements increase the number of open access publications. In April 2022, we retrieved 370 transformative agreements from the ESAC Transformative Agreement Registry, of which 72 met our inclusion criteria. At that time, agreements in the ESAC Registry were heavily weighted towards Europe. We retrieved publications from the Web of Science Core Collection, and screened these to ensure that they were authored by researchers at participating institutions and published in hybrid open access journals covered by the agreement. Using the Unpaywall API, we determined the open access status of each item. Through this process, we identified 156,053 publications that met inclusion criteria. In this article, we examine changes in publication patterns at an aggregate level and per agreement

Dielectrophoretic Assembly of Carbon Nanofiber Nanoelectromechanical Devices

We report a technique for the assembly of bottom-up nanomechanical devices. This technique employs the dielectrophoretic manipulation of nanostructures within a multiple layer lithography process. Mechanical resonators were specifically produced by assembling and clamping tubular carbon fibers onto prefabricated pads. Our preliminary results showed that an assembled cantilevered fiber with length L = 5 µm and width of W = 180 nm possessed a resonant frequency of f = 1.17 MHz. A shorter L = 3-µm-long singly clamped resonator of similar width showed a resonance of f = 3.12 MHz. This frequency range is in agreement with the low gigapascal bending moduli previously reported for carbon structures showing extensive volume defects. This technology would allow the integration of bottom-up nanostructures with other more established fabrication processes, thus allowing the deployment of engineered nanodevices in integrated systems

Educating the public health workforce: Issues and challenges

Background: In public health, as well as other health education contexts, there is increasing recognition of the transformation in public health practice and the necessity for educational providers to keep pace. Traditionally, public health education has been at the postgraduate level; however, over the past decade an upsurge in the growth of undergraduate public health degrees has taken place. Discussion: This article explores the impact of these changes on the traditional sphere of Master of Public Health programs, the range of competencies required at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and the relevance of these changes to the public health workforce. It raises questions about the complexity of educational issues facing tertiary institutions and discusses the implications of these issues on undergraduate and postgraduate programs in public health. Conclusion: The planning and provisioning of education in public health must differentiate between the requirements of undergraduate and postgraduate students – while also addressing the changing needs of the health workforce. Within Australia, although significant research has been undertaken regarding the competencies required by postgraduate public health students, the approach is still somewhat piecemeal, and does not address undergraduate public health. This paper argues for a consistent approach to competencies that describe and differentiate entry-level and advanced practice